---
title: Release Notes – May 26th 2023
category: release-notes
description: Enhanced presence! Cursor names, viewport following, snapshot links and a frickin laser (pointer).
hero: /images/blog/37b664ec-2638-4655-ac20-5d706c681b2d_2378x1448.png
date: 5/26/2023
status: published
author:
  - luwilson
  - steveruizok
---

Welcome to this week’s release notes for [tldraw](http://tldraw.com/). This week we introduce **enhanced presence** to our multiplayer rooms. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s jump in.

But first…

## One neat trick

![](/images/blog/4d2f3426-c82b-46f6-88f2-dc6674b35ecb_720x406.gif)

With summer right around the corner, it seems like everyone is talking about the **line tool**. Did you know that you can add more points to a line by dragging the secret handle in the middle of a line segment? You can add as many extra points as you want—and you can make it curvy by changing its **Spline** option in the style menu.

## What’s new

### The people menu

![](/images/blog/68f2e90d-7744-4931-be04-cb41b96f6f7b_1734x940.png)

Introducing the **People Menu**! Here you can change your name and color (now shown beside to your cursor) and see who else is in your shared project. You can **zoom to another user** by clicking on their name, or **follow** **another user** around the app by double clicking their name or clicking the eye button next to their name.

![](/images/blog/c2a054d7-1319-468a-8231-a78c25a81685_720x406.gif)

> To create a shared room, click the **Share** button at the top right side of the page. Click **Share this project** and then click **Copy share link** to copy the page’s URL to the clipboard. Share the URL with a friend (or lots of friends) to invite them to the project.

### Laser tool

Introducing the **Laser Tool**. You can use the laser tool to make temporary annotations on top of a project—even when viewing a read-only project. Find it in the toolbar or by pressing the **K** shortcut.

![](/images/blog/3827572f-d0ea-4ec7-875c-852a44011547_720x406.gif)

### Snapshot links

Introducing **snapshot links**. Snapshot links allow you to store a frozen, read-only copy of a project’s current state to the cloud.

![](/images/blog/1db7c935-8a1d-488e-800c-8d9673c826f5_720x406.gif)

### Text label alignment

You can now set the **vertical alignment** for geometric shape text labels. We’ve also changed the way that horizontal alignment works so that the label’s alignment determines its position inside of the shape.

![](/images/blog/8a09f806-4e67-4039-8631-e85681f81911_720x406.gif)

### Text pasting

We’ve greatly improved the experience of **pasting text into tldraw** , especially when that text is multi-line text. When the text is too wide, we create a fixed-width text shape rather than an auto-width text shape. We also base the shape’s alignment on the language being pasted!

![](/images/blog/334c219a-4b7b-45d4-b6af-492d4851bf2a_720x406.gif)

We also **respect indentation** on the pasted text, stripping any leading indentation. Perfect for pasting code!

![](/images/blog/be4333b5-a2d2-4089-9817-36e605d60d02_720x406.gif)

### Checkbox shape

We now have a checkbox shape!

![](/images/blog/73f2cc45-863e-4d11-ab91-31500ad29fbe_720x406.gif)

## Improvements

Your **user preferences** now stay with you from project-to-project. Your preferences include your dark mode, language locale, and whatever name and color you pick using the people menu.

We simplified the **file menu** , and added a new action for leaving a shared project or “forking” a shared project (creating a new one based on the current project).

We completely re-did the way that we **export text**. It now handles edge cases much better, and deals with whitespace, hyphens, and line-breaks.

![](/images/blog/89965707-b8ff-4abd-8423-55222b053691_720x406.gif)

And to prepare for some upcoming features (like **cursor chat** ), we now use [custom cursors](https://twitter.com/tldraw/status/1661038696630476801) on the canvas.

## Fixes

- We now clean up users that leave a shared project, making for much smaller file sizes and much load times on shared projects.
- Fixed a bug where the shadow of custom cursors could get ever so slightly clipped.
- Fixed the checkbox tool not appearing in the toolbar.
- Fixed drag handles of the page menu sometimes not displaying correctly.
- Disabled keyboard shortcuts for tools in readonly mode.
- Stopped extra network calls happening when moving the camera.
- iPad: Fixed a bug where pinch gestures could get disabled.
- Firefox: Fixed a bug where the pointer could get stuck down when holding down the control key.

---

That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoy the changes (they [combine well](https://twitter.com/tldraw/status/1661725272515682306)). If you have any ideas or feedback, [drop by our Discord](https://discord.gg/Up7bFHPstc) or follow along on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/tldraw) or [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@tldraw@mas.to). And if you’re a developer, come check out the [GitHub repo](https://github.com/tldraw/tldraw). See you next week!

Here’s this week’s stinger

![](/images/blog/c1192d33-0002-4b6f-9db0-e37281056f4b_976x536.png)
